TAKE A CHANCE

There have been many times in my life I have used people to get what I wanted out of life. Many of those times I didn’t always have enough self-awareness to know, that that was what I was doing. I never forced anyone to do anything, but certainly took advantage of relationships, friendships and manipulated circumstances to my advantage.

I speak of this not as some confessional, as I have done that and will gladly do again when called for. It’s just that I have come to realize how much I still do it and how much we all do it. That is, use others rather than love others. Even when I do good things for other people I know, sometimes, if not all the time I do it for my own selfish reasons. Wanting to feel good about myself for example or satisfying some obligation I feel or doing a favor to gain a favor or gain influence.

The trip I am now on my way back from, to Kenya once more, for me has been exhausting, even grueling, both physically and emotionally. A nine day trip, close to 20,000 miles round trip, 40 hours on 4 different flights, 3 days of all day driving in a Land Rover over the terrible dirt roads in Kenya, being thrown about like a pinball machine.

Now please, I am not trying to impress anyone or seek sympathy. Been there, done that. It is just that there were times during this trip when I was missing my wife and family, when I was exhausted, dirty, worn out emotionally, knowing tomorrow would involve more of the same, that I couldn’t help but feel discouraged, couldn’t help but wonder why in the blazes I was doing this, because now there wasn’t anything in it for me. The excitement of going to Africa had worn off with last years trip, the “cool factor” of doing missionary work was gone and any obligation I may have had was paid.

Then finally in my loneliness, though surrounded by scores of grateful villagers, I realized that for perhaps the 1st time in my life I was doing something that cost me, without the need for anything in return. It’s not that I didn’t get thanks and love from the villagers. It’s just that I didn’t need it or require it to go on doing what I was doing.

That hasn’t brought me great joy, like I have somehow achieved something or had some spectacular epiphany. Instead, as I write this on the plane back home, tears are falling. I am not sure why, perhaps something inside of me that was broken has healed or perhaps the reverse, something inside of me that needed to be broken has, finally, so that the healing can begin.

So, if this is not a confessional, what is in this post for you?

Please, take a chance. Take a chance to love someone in spite of the love returned. I don’t mean romantic love but agape love: unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, voluntary, volitional.

Examine your motives. I assure you if you are truly honest with yourself, you will find even in your most altruistic moments you are meeting your own selfish needs. Somehow validating your own perceptions of yourself, of right and wrong, good and bad, love and hate.

So take a chance, love without conditions, give without thanks. It will cost you. I repeat. It will cost you. But here’s the rub. You will be changed. I guarantee it.

So, take a chance! Give up your comfort, your wealth, your own happiness for a moment. For the cause of lessening someone else's discomfort, their loneliness, their poverty, their shame. I can’t tell you what to do. You’ll know the moment if you look for it. Not as some assignment or stunt. Not just to prove me right or wrong. Do it for real, roll the dice, take a risk, take a chance.

Eaar